Samuel Gyasi Obeng
Biographic Data
| ID | 90498 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Samuel Gyasi Obeng |
| GIVEN NAMES | Samuel Gyasi |
| FAMILY NAME | Obeng |
| SIGNATURE | OBENG S G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University Bloomington |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3793-6908 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 122 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The conceptualization and application of ‘adwene’ in Akan customary jurisprudence
This study analyzes the linguistic and conceptual role of adwene (a judicial concept) in Akan judicial discourse. Using transcripts collected from 10 Akan Native Courts in Ghana and working within Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Framework (CMF), the paper explores how interpretations of adwene are used to construct and understand participants’ intentions, stance, and worldview regarding justice, legality, morality, and social acceptabili…
Political Discourse Analysis
Political Discourse Analysis examines how political actors can regain power and credibility in a world of constant challenges to their authority. The multiple approaches in this book show how political actors strive to maintain control in the face of democratic deficit and crisis in developed societies and existential threats to stability in regimes worldwide. While many actors seek legitimisation through the institutional structure, the media or…
Turn taking in Ghanaian judicial discourse
Turn construction and turn allocation in social interactions have been studied from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, the most important and debated ones being conversation analysis and (critical) discourse analysis. Even though turn taking has been studied in informal conversations in Ghanaian languages, nothing has been done on turn taking in Ghanaian judicial discourse. This paper examines turn taking management in Ghanaia…
Language’, power and liberty
Unlike xenoglossia ( xenolalia), which involves speaking a language one has neither learned nor could have acquired naturally, glossolalia ( ecstatic speech) is the uttering of ‘incomprehensible’ stretch of utterances while in a state of trance. Using transcripts of recorded glossolalic utterances and of interviews collected over a 3-month period as our data source and working within the frameworks of language and power, and language and liberty …
Language and power
This article investigates the power dynamics at play in interpreter-mediated discourse interactions in the district courts in Ghana. Using audio recordings of authentic courtroom proceedings, we analyzed the discursive practices performed by court actors, especially interpreters, and the ways in which these practices signal their power or the lack thereof. We also examine the way language is employed by dominant actors to intrude on the liberty o…
Language and liberty
Linguists consider language, the most important tool of human existence, as first and foremost, a cognitive experience actualized through speech. Liberty, a principal concept, has since the beginning of the renaissance attracted the attention of philosophers, jurists, political scientists, ethicists, media scholars, among others, as an indispensable facet of human life in the areas of governance and the constitution of order, peoplehood, and soci…
Grammatical Pragmatics
This paper explores some pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic aspects of the Akan (Ghana, West Africa) native court judicial discourse. It is argued that court officials and litigants use specific content and functional words, idioms and other implicit expressions, as well as phonetic resources like mezzoforte and pianissimo loudness to express power, politeness and a range of attitudes and relationships such as distancing, anger, closeness, and p…
Grammatical pragmatics
This study demonstrates the interconnectedness between language, power and liberty. Using two of Dr Joseph Boakye Danquah’s letters written to President Nkrumah (Ghana) and working within the frameworks of language and power and language and liberty (Obeng, present article), we demonstrate that although by being candid, Ghanaian political actors in opposition risk personal danger, such actors have strategies for seeking the protection of their li…
Women's Voices in Akan Juridical Discourse
Africa Today - Volume 49, Number 1, Spring 2002
West Africanisms in Limonese Creole English
Costa Rican Limonese Creole (LC) is an English‐based creole language showing substrate influence from, among other African languages, the Kwa languages of West Africa, in particular from Akan (Ghana). West Africanisms exhibited in LC include: serial verb constructions, reduplication, ideophones, and lexical retentions. The study of West Africanisms in LC contributes to the body of research on substrate influence on West Atlantic Creoles. This is …
Speaking the Unspeakable
In Ghana, as in most multilingual sub-Sahara African countries, language preferences and ethnic identity often pull in the same direction. Through the graffiti on Legon walls and doors, students show their like or dislike for certain ethnic groups (especially the Ewe and the Akan-Asante) and their languages. The discursive strategies used to express language attitudes in the graffiti include intertextuality (imitation and influence) and draw on l…
Doing politics on walls and doors
Graffiti act as a medium through which political (including socio-political unmentionables are mentioned without the writer attracting any political or social sanctions. Graffiti in Legon (Ghana) have anonymous authors. Through graffiti, people of lower social/political status (students) express their opinions on political actors (people holding public office) and political decision making processes. They also express their anger and frustration …
Labio-Palatalization in Twi
The authors propose that the typologically uncommon combination of labial and palatal constriction in Twi has arisen from a convergence created by general patterns of coarticulation of consonants and vowels. This convergence has been systematized in a (consonantal) acoustic dimension partially independent from the original (vocalic) dimensions of contrast for which the rounding and palatal articulations were specified. These conclusions are based…
Korle Meets the Sea
Korle Meets the Sea. Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 216 pp
The Structure of Dagaare (review)
In future if l buy a dog, l'll call it ́Okyeman-is-ungrateful ́. ̋ Indirect response to potentially difficult communicative situations
Article ̋In future if l buy a dog, l'll call it ́Okyeman-is-ungrateful ́. ̋ Indirect response to potentially difficult communicative situations: the case of Akan dog names was published on January 1, 1999 in the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (volume 1999, issue 140)
Apologies in Akan discourse
Akan Death-Prevention Names
This paper discusses the content and types of Akan death-prevention names. It provides a structural linguistic analysis of the morphology of these names and presents a socio- and ethnolingustic account of the death-prevention names as they function within Akan communication: Thepaper also classifies the names according to their structures. Death-prevention names are shown to be meaningful and to refer to the lives of both their bearers and the na…
An analysis of the linguistic situation in Ghana
(1997). An analysis of the linguistic situation in Ghana. African Languages and Cultures: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 63-81
Language and Politics
Politicians, in talking about potential face-threatening acts or politically risky topics, avoid the obvious and communicate indirectly in order to protect and further their own careers and to gain both political and interactional advantage over their political opponents. The indirectness may also be motivated by politeness. This obliqueness in communication may be expressed through evasion, circumlocution, innuendoes, metaphors, etc. Language as…
From morphophonology to sociolinguistics
During hypocoristization in Akan, such morphological processes as compounding and reduplication as well as such (morph)phonological processes as deletion, tonal change, and vowel harmony take place. Akan hypocoristic personal day-names provide an insight into morphological status marking. Hypocoristic forms may be used in a superior-to-subordinate context. When used in a superior-to-subordinate interactive context, hypcoristic names express affec…
Indirectness in Pronominal Usage in Akan Discourse
This article discusses the pragmatic import of Akan personal pronouns by examining different personal pronouns and showing their address and referential values and meanings. It also discusses how in certain communicational contexts, specific personal pronouns are used to index referents other than the ones conventionally associated with a particular form. Apart from having a first person reference, the first person pronoun may be used as a second…
Verbal indirection in Akan informal discourse
Language and Politics
Politicians, in talking about potential face-threatening acts or politically risky topics, avoid the obvious and communicate indirectly in order to protect and further their own careers and to gain both political and interactional advantage over their political opponents. The indirectness may also be motivated by politeness. This obliqueness in communication may be expressed through evasion, circumlocution, innuendoes, metaphors, etc. Language as…
Apologies in Akan discourse
Akan Death-Prevention Names
This paper discusses the content and types of Akan death-prevention names. It provides a structural linguistic analysis of the morphology of these names and presents a socio- and ethnolingustic account of the death-prevention names as they function within Akan communication: Thepaper also classifies the names according to their structures. Death-prevention names are shown to be meaningful and to refer to the lives of both their bearers and the na…
Verbal indirection in Akan informal discourse
Speaking the Unspeakable
In Ghana, as in most multilingual sub-Sahara African countries, language preferences and ethnic identity often pull in the same direction. Through the graffiti on Legon walls and doors, students show their like or dislike for certain ethnic groups (especially the Ewe and the Akan-Asante) and their languages. The discursive strategies used to express language attitudes in the graffiti include intertextuality (imitation and influence) and draw on l…
From morphophonology to sociolinguistics
During hypocoristization in Akan, such morphological processes as compounding and reduplication as well as such (morph)phonological processes as deletion, tonal change, and vowel harmony take place. Akan hypocoristic personal day-names provide an insight into morphological status marking. Hypocoristic forms may be used in a superior-to-subordinate context. When used in a superior-to-subordinate interactive context, hypcoristic names express affec…
Grammatical pragmatics
This study demonstrates the interconnectedness between language, power and liberty. Using two of Dr Joseph Boakye Danquah’s letters written to President Nkrumah (Ghana) and working within the frameworks of language and power and language and liberty (Obeng, present article), we demonstrate that although by being candid, Ghanaian political actors in opposition risk personal danger, such actors have strategies for seeking the protection of their li…
Women's Voices in Akan Juridical Discourse
Africa Today - Volume 49, Number 1, Spring 2002
Doing politics on walls and doors
Graffiti act as a medium through which political (including socio-political unmentionables are mentioned without the writer attracting any political or social sanctions. Graffiti in Legon (Ghana) have anonymous authors. Through graffiti, people of lower social/political status (students) express their opinions on political actors (people holding public office) and political decision making processes. They also express their anger and frustration …
Language and power
This article investigates the power dynamics at play in interpreter-mediated discourse interactions in the district courts in Ghana. Using audio recordings of authentic courtroom proceedings, we analyzed the discursive practices performed by court actors, especially interpreters, and the ways in which these practices signal their power or the lack thereof. We also examine the way language is employed by dominant actors to intrude on the liberty o…
West Africanisms in Limonese Creole English
Costa Rican Limonese Creole (LC) is an English‐based creole language showing substrate influence from, among other African languages, the Kwa languages of West Africa, in particular from Akan (Ghana). West Africanisms exhibited in LC include: serial verb constructions, reduplication, ideophones, and lexical retentions. The study of West Africanisms in LC contributes to the body of research on substrate influence on West Atlantic Creoles. This is …
Labio-Palatalization in Twi
The authors propose that the typologically uncommon combination of labial and palatal constriction in Twi has arisen from a convergence created by general patterns of coarticulation of consonants and vowels. This convergence has been systematized in a (consonantal) acoustic dimension partially independent from the original (vocalic) dimensions of contrast for which the rounding and palatal articulations were specified. These conclusions are based…
In future if l buy a dog, l'll call it ́Okyeman-is-ungrateful ́. ̋ Indirect response to potentially difficult communicative situations
Article ̋In future if l buy a dog, l'll call it ́Okyeman-is-ungrateful ́. ̋ Indirect response to potentially difficult communicative situations: the case of Akan dog names was published on January 1, 1999 in the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (volume 1999, issue 140)
Indirectness in Pronominal Usage in Akan Discourse
This article discusses the pragmatic import of Akan personal pronouns by examining different personal pronouns and showing their address and referential values and meanings. It also discusses how in certain communicational contexts, specific personal pronouns are used to index referents other than the ones conventionally associated with a particular form. Apart from having a first person reference, the first person pronoun may be used as a second…
Verbal indirection in Akan informal discourse
An analysis of the linguistic situation in Ghana
(1997). An analysis of the linguistic situation in Ghana. African Languages and Cultures: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 63-81
Language and Politics
Politicians, in talking about potential face-threatening acts or politically risky topics, avoid the obvious and communicate indirectly in order to protect and further their own careers and to gain both political and interactional advantage over their political opponents. The indirectness may also be motivated by politeness. This obliqueness in communication may be expressed through evasion, circumlocution, innuendoes, metaphors, etc. Language as…
From morphophonology to sociolinguistics
During hypocoristization in Akan, such morphological processes as compounding and reduplication as well as such (morph)phonological processes as deletion, tonal change, and vowel harmony take place. Akan hypocoristic personal day-names provide an insight into morphological status marking. Hypocoristic forms may be used in a superior-to-subordinate context. When used in a superior-to-subordinate interactive context, hypcoristic names express affec…
Indirectness in Pronominal Usage in Akan Discourse
This article discusses the pragmatic import of Akan personal pronouns by examining different personal pronouns and showing their address and referential values and meanings. It also discusses how in certain communicational contexts, specific personal pronouns are used to index referents other than the ones conventionally associated with a particular form. Apart from having a first person reference, the first person pronoun may be used as a second…
Akan Death-Prevention Names
This paper discusses the content and types of Akan death-prevention names. It provides a structural linguistic analysis of the morphology of these names and presents a socio- and ethnolingustic account of the death-prevention names as they function within Akan communication: Thepaper also classifies the names according to their structures. Death-prevention names are shown to be meaningful and to refer to the lives of both their bearers and the na…
The Structure of Dagaare (review)
In future if l buy a dog, l'll call it ́Okyeman-is-ungrateful ́. ̋ Indirect response to potentially difficult communicative situations
Article ̋In future if l buy a dog, l'll call it ́Okyeman-is-ungrateful ́. ̋ Indirect response to potentially difficult communicative situations: the case of Akan dog names was published on January 1, 1999 in the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (volume 1999, issue 140)
Apologies in Akan discourse
West Africanisms in Limonese Creole English
Costa Rican Limonese Creole (LC) is an English‐based creole language showing substrate influence from, among other African languages, the Kwa languages of West Africa, in particular from Akan (Ghana). West Africanisms exhibited in LC include: serial verb constructions, reduplication, ideophones, and lexical retentions. The study of West Africanisms in LC contributes to the body of research on substrate influence on West Atlantic Creoles. This is …
Speaking the Unspeakable
In Ghana, as in most multilingual sub-Sahara African countries, language preferences and ethnic identity often pull in the same direction. Through the graffiti on Legon walls and doors, students show their like or dislike for certain ethnic groups (especially the Ewe and the Akan-Asante) and their languages. The discursive strategies used to express language attitudes in the graffiti include intertextuality (imitation and influence) and draw on l…
Doing politics on walls and doors
Graffiti act as a medium through which political (including socio-political unmentionables are mentioned without the writer attracting any political or social sanctions. Graffiti in Legon (Ghana) have anonymous authors. Through graffiti, people of lower social/political status (students) express their opinions on political actors (people holding public office) and political decision making processes. They also express their anger and frustration …
Labio-Palatalization in Twi
The authors propose that the typologically uncommon combination of labial and palatal constriction in Twi has arisen from a convergence created by general patterns of coarticulation of consonants and vowels. This convergence has been systematized in a (consonantal) acoustic dimension partially independent from the original (vocalic) dimensions of contrast for which the rounding and palatal articulations were specified. These conclusions are based…
Korle Meets the Sea
Korle Meets the Sea. Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 216 pp
Women's Voices in Akan Juridical Discourse
Africa Today - Volume 49, Number 1, Spring 2002
Grammatical pragmatics
This study demonstrates the interconnectedness between language, power and liberty. Using two of Dr Joseph Boakye Danquah’s letters written to President Nkrumah (Ghana) and working within the frameworks of language and power and language and liberty (Obeng, present article), we demonstrate that although by being candid, Ghanaian political actors in opposition risk personal danger, such actors have strategies for seeking the protection of their li…
Language and liberty
Linguists consider language, the most important tool of human existence, as first and foremost, a cognitive experience actualized through speech. Liberty, a principal concept, has since the beginning of the renaissance attracted the attention of philosophers, jurists, political scientists, ethicists, media scholars, among others, as an indispensable facet of human life in the areas of governance and the constitution of order, peoplehood, and soci…
Grammatical Pragmatics
This paper explores some pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic aspects of the Akan (Ghana, West Africa) native court judicial discourse. It is argued that court officials and litigants use specific content and functional words, idioms and other implicit expressions, as well as phonetic resources like mezzoforte and pianissimo loudness to express power, politeness and a range of attitudes and relationships such as distancing, anger, closeness, and p…
Turn taking in Ghanaian judicial discourse
Turn construction and turn allocation in social interactions have been studied from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, the most important and debated ones being conversation analysis and (critical) discourse analysis. Even though turn taking has been studied in informal conversations in Ghanaian languages, nothing has been done on turn taking in Ghanaian judicial discourse. This paper examines turn taking management in Ghanaia…
Language’, power and liberty
Unlike xenoglossia ( xenolalia), which involves speaking a language one has neither learned nor could have acquired naturally, glossolalia ( ecstatic speech) is the uttering of ‘incomprehensible’ stretch of utterances while in a state of trance. Using transcripts of recorded glossolalic utterances and of interviews collected over a 3-month period as our data source and working within the frameworks of language and power, and language and liberty …
Language and power
This article investigates the power dynamics at play in interpreter-mediated discourse interactions in the district courts in Ghana. Using audio recordings of authentic courtroom proceedings, we analyzed the discursive practices performed by court actors, especially interpreters, and the ways in which these practices signal their power or the lack thereof. We also examine the way language is employed by dominant actors to intrude on the liberty o…
Political Discourse Analysis
Political Discourse Analysis examines how political actors can regain power and credibility in a world of constant challenges to their authority. The multiple approaches in this book show how political actors strive to maintain control in the face of democratic deficit and crisis in developed societies and existential threats to stability in regimes worldwide. While many actors seek legitimisation through the institutional structure, the media or…
The conceptualization and application of ‘adwene’ in Akan customary jurisprudence
This study analyzes the linguistic and conceptual role of adwene (a judicial concept) in Akan judicial discourse. Using transcripts collected from 10 Akan Native Courts in Ghana and working within Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Framework (CMF), the paper explores how interpretations of adwene are used to construct and understand participants’ intentions, stance, and worldview regarding justice, legality, morality, and social acceptabili…
Linguistics (18 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (13 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works)